


The Full Xander Harris Experience

by Mireille



Series: Five People Who, in Some Dimension, Dated Xander Harris in High School [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: spring_with_xan, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-19
Updated: 2007-04-19
Packaged: 2019-03-16 23:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13646493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: "We hang out," Xander said. "And then you'll understand that I'm completely serious when I tell you that I am one hundred percent, completely and totally, straight.""You're one hundred percent, completely and totally, insane."Xander attempts to prove a point. It...does not go as expected.





	1. Chapter 1

"There is," Xander said, after carefully checking out the hallway to make sure there was nobody to overhear him, "no such thing as a tasteful coming-out announcement."   
  
He'd carefully chosen this spot to bring up this particular subject with Larry, because it was one, near a class he knew Larry was in without any of the rest of the football team, and two, on a hall where the lockers were assigned to ninth-graders. Xander didn't care what freshmen heard him saying, or who they saw him saying it to; nobody listened to them anyway.   
  
Larry, damn him, didn't even check the hall. All he did was tuck his books more securely under his arm and shrug. "There could be," he said, just like it hadn't been days since the start of that conversation. "Just because you've never seen one before doesn’t mean that it wouldn't be a good idea. It'd take a lot of the pressure off you, you know? You could tell everyone at once without having to look them in the eye, since you're having trouble telling people that you're--"  
  
"Whoa," Xander interrupted him quickly. Even freshmen didn't need to hear that, especially since it was about the least true thing Larry could ever say. "I'm not having trouble telling anybody anything!"  
  
Looking back, he should have been prepared for Larry to clap him on the shoulder supportively. Years of instincts finely honed by Larry beating the crap out of him, though, meant that Xander jumped back about halfway across the hall before his brain caught up and reminded him that this was the new, improved Larry, and he'd stopped doing stuff like that last year.   
  
"It's okay," Larry said. "I didn't mean to freak you out, but dude, you seriously have to lighten up about this."   
  
No. Lightening up about this was exactly what Xander didn't need to be doing. He needed to be settling this with Larry, right now, so that Larry finally understood that while Xander was glad Larry was comfortable with his own gayness, Xander didn’t have any gayness to get comfortable  _with_.   
  
"I didn't mean that there was no such thing as a coming-out announcement," Xander said, lowering his voice again in case the ninth-graders were getting curious. Two of them were standing by their locker, but they were little girls who probably only knew that Larry was a hunky football star. Not that  _Xander_  thought the word "hunky" applied to Larry, partly because it was a stupid word, but mostly because he was so very not gay. "I have no idea whether or not there is, because have I mentioned lately that I'm  _not gay_?"   
  
Before Larry could say anything, Xander went on. The less Larry got to talk, the less time Xander felt like he was losing control of the situation. It only took a word or two most of the time, since Larry was completely immune to logic. "I meant, there's no way it could be  _tasteful_. How could something like that be in good taste?"   
  
Larry sighed. "Look, man, you really need to get a handle on your internalized homophobia. It's going to screw you up big time." He shrugged. "My mom gave me a couple of books last year, if you want to borrow them."   
  
Even if he  _was_  gay, the last thing he would have wanted was a  _book_  about it. "It's not the gay thing," Xander said. "I mean, I'm not gay, but it's not the gay thing. It's--if I took out an ad in the paper that said, 'Xander Harris likes girls,' it'd be just as stupid. I mean, personal ads are one thing, but come-and-date-me announcements--"  
  
"Hey, I don't care what you do, okay? But you've been freaking out about this since last year, at least, and I figured I owed you some help in figuring it out."   
  
Okay, Xander had been trying  _not_  to think evil thoughts about football players since Larry's little epiphany last year, because he hadn't been shoved into a locker since last April or beaten up at  _all_ , and he was pretty sure Larry had a lot to do with that. But jeez, apparently they were every bit as dumb as Xander had always claimed they were. "There's nothing to figure out!" he repeated. "Larry, I get that you're trying to help, and that's, um. Actually kind of nice of you."   
  
He blinked. Larry not punching him, he was slowly getting used to. Larry being  _nice_  to him was still weird, though. But if he stopped to think about that now, he'd just lose track of his argument, so he took a deep breath and forged ahead. "But I like girls. Really, really like girls. And I know, you used to pretend you liked girls, but I dated Cordelia for like a year, and if I had only been pretending,  _I would know._  And so would half the school, probably, because Cordy would have figured it out."  
  
And oh, thank God Larry was nodding, because Xander had been about to launch into seriously excessive detail about all the things he had liked about Cordelia. He wasn't even going to  _mention_  all the things he'd liked about Willow, because they were over that now and there was no point in dwelling on his moments of being a jackass, or the things he'd liked about Faith, because that led to memories he didn't want to examine too closely. But even limiting himself to Cordelia would probably be more than he ought to broadcast in the hallway, even if the ninth-grade girls seemed to have gotten bored and wandered off.   
  
"Okay," Larry said. "I believe you."  
  
"So no matter what you think of me--wait, you  _believe_  me?"  
  
"Why wouldn't I?"  
  
"You've been walking around for the past year thinking I  _came out to you_ , and all it takes is me saying 'I like girls' for you to change your mind?" Why hadn't he thought of that before? he wondered. Oh, yeah, because it was stupid, that was why. If "I'm not gay," hadn't worked, why would "I like girls" make a difference?  
  
 _Football players_ , he thought, trying not to roll his eyes.   
  
"Seriously, I get it now," Larry said. "I just hadn't realized you were bi."   
  
"I--" Xander began, too completely stunned to find a verb.   
  
Then one of Larry's friends came around the corner, and Larry said, "Gotta go. Find me later if you still want to talk," before taking off down the hall, leaving Xander still standing there, doing a pretty good impression of a dying goldfish.   
  
" _What_?" he managed finally, but without an audience, it lost a lot of its impact.  
  
  


***

  
  
"It's time to get this settled," Xander said, sliding into the chair across from Larry and setting down his lunch tray. Yesterday, he'd finally been struck by the perfect solution to the Larry Situation, which was what he'd been calling it--only in his own mind, of course, because otherwise he'd have to explain to the girls and Oz what the Larry Situation was, and then they might think that there was a reason that it was a Situation other than just the total brain-melting  _incorrectness_  of Larry's point of view, and...   
  
Well, to summarize, that would be a giant "no." With flashing lights. And possibly bells.   
  
So today when Buffy and Willow had been studying for a history quiz Xander wasn't going to pass no matter how many times he reviewed, and Oz had been nowhere in sight, and  _then_  he'd seen Larry sitting alone, Xander figured it was time to strike while the iron was hot, whatever that meant.   
  
He was choosing to interpret it as meaning, "talk to Larry before you never have another chance and he goes through the rest of his life believing you're at least halfway gay." If it meant anything else, he probably didn't need to know.   
  
Larry looked up from the notebook he'd had propped up in front of him. "Hey, Xander," he said. "You don't have Mrs. Kirksey for physics, do you?"   
  
Xander blinked at him. Okay, more proof that Larry was totally unobservant, or he would not be asking if Xander had class with the  _honors_  physics teacher. Xander was kind of surprised that  _Larry_  had class with her; maybe he had a lot more time for studying now that he didn't have to schedule in random acts of violence against his fellow students. "Uh, no," he said, comforted a little bit. Of course Larry had the wrong idea about his sexual orientation. Larry had him confused with someone else. Someone who was apparently both smart and gay.   
  
"I didn't think so, but it was worth a shot." Larry sighed. "I was at the dentist Monday and can't find anyone who'll lend me the notes, and we have a quiz sixth period."   
  
"That sucks," Xander sympathized. Okay, enough of the small talk. He was here for a reason, and he wasn't going to let Larry distract him with thoughts of physics quizzes. Especially when they weren't  _Xander's_  physics quizzes. "But I kind of need to talk to you for a minute."  
  
"I might as well. I'm already going to bomb the quiz." He closed the notebook and took a swig from his can of 7-Up. "What's up?"  
  
"This whole thing where you think I'm--" There was no way Xander was going to let the words "I'm gay" come out of his mouth in a crowded cafeteria, even if it was in the middle of a vehement denial. People had a tendency to only hear the embarrassing parts of what he said. "--something I'm not," he concluded.   
  
"Seriously, dude, calm down," Larry said. "It's not like I'm going around  _telling_  people. If you think your friends wouldn't be able to deal with it if you came out to them--"  
  
"What? They wouldn't care!" Willow was his best friend; she wouldn't stop liking him for something like that. And if he could handle Buffy being Supergirl, she'd definitely be able to handle something as normal as him being gay. Or bi. Or any one of million other things that he wasn't.  
  
"Okay, your parents, or whoever."   
  
Xander did not let himself contemplate telling his parents, just was grateful that he was never going to have to.   
  
"Anyway, I think you're making a mistake," Larry went on, "but I'll keep it a secret if that's what you want." He grinned. "You might want to rethink that strategy of hunting me down to yell 'I’m not gay!' at me, though."   
  
"About that strategy," Xander said. "I agree, it needs some fine-tuning."  
  
"Or you could just give up on it," Larry suggested.   
  
"I could," he admitted. "But I'm not going to. What I am going to do, though, is prove to you that I'm not any of the things you might think I am."  
  
"I think you're kind of a dork," Larry pointed out, although with a friendlier grin than Xander had ever expected to see from him. "Gonna prove me wrong about that, too?"   
  
"Maybe." Definitely, he thought. "But that's not the key element in my plan. And now I'm sure you're thinking, 'But what is this brilliant plan of Xander's?'"   
  
"Honestly? I was thinking, 'Am I going to have enough time to go to my locker before the bell rings?' but we can go with that if you want."  
  
"Laugh all you want," Xander said. "But the thing is, you don't know me all that well."  
  
"We've known each other since kindergarten." Larry had apparently decided Xander was going to be here for a while, because he went back to eating his lunch while Xander talked.   
  
"Not really," Xander said. "Up until last year, our relationship had totally been, 'you hit, I hide.' And that doesn't give you the full Xander Harris experience."  
  
Larry paused, a forkful of Tuna Surprise suspended in midair, and looked at Xander for a second. Then he put the fork down carefully before saying, "Exactly what  _is_ the full Xander Harris experience?"   
  
"We hang out," Xander said. "Not forever, and not all the time, but just long enough that you get to know me. And then you'll understand that I'm completely serious when I tell you that I am one hundred percent, completely and totally, straight."   
  
"You're one hundred percent, completely and totally, insane," Larry said. Then he shrugged. "But what the hell. I don't have football practice any more, so I have time. Why not?"  
  
Xander hadn't actually expected Larry to agree with him, and he had to take a second to review his plans before he could be sure he hadn't already promised to do something with the girls. "Today after school?" he said. "You know, unless there's an apocalypse or something," he went on before remembering that was the kind of thing he was leaving  _out_  of the Xander Harris experience.  
  
"You do know you're kind of a freak, right?" Larry said, but he shrugged again. "Sure. I'll find you at your locker."  
  
  


***

  
  
Xander had three classes after lunch; he'd spent fourth period worrying about how he was going to explain to Willow and Buffy that he was going to hang out with Larry after school instead of with them; fifth period, he'd moved on to worrying about how he'd explain it to Larry if there actually was something apocalyptic going on after school today and he had to bail; and by sixth period, he'd settled on asking himself, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and "Are you  _insane_?"   
  
There had not been a lot of actual learning going on, but that wasn't exactly a new thing for him.   
  
He still hadn't resolved any of his worries by the time the last bell had rung and he'd headed for his locker, but when he got there, he found out that Larry had taken care of one of them for him. He was standing there already, looking a little bit uncomfortable as he talked to the girls.   
  
Considering the last time that Xander remembered Larry and Buffy having any significant interaction was back during Larry's asshole-caveman days, that could be extremely not good. Xander hurried up in case some rescuing was in order. He might like Buffy a lot more than he liked Larry, but that didn't mean it'd be a good idea to let her beat him up too badly. Snyder wouldn't have any problem kicking her out again, even if it was only a few weeks until graduation.  
  
"Hey, Xander," Larry said as he approached. "I think I've convinced your friends that this was your idea, and I'm really not dragging you off somewhere to beat you up in secret."   
  
Xander looked from Buffy to Willow and back again. They looked curious and confused, but not actually worried about him. "Yeah, um, I probably should have mentioned it before. I'm, uh." He paused, realizing that "proving to Larry that I'm straight" was not the way he wanted to finish that sentence. "I'm hanging out with Larry this afternoon. Unless there's something big going on?" he added, directing it at Buffy.   
  
"No," she said, "nothing major. I'm going to the library to--to study," she said, and it kind of reassured Xander that he wasn't the only one having trouble  _not_  saying the wrong thing in front of Larry.   
  
"And I'm waiting for Oz," Willow said. "But I thought we were all going to hang out after Buffy gets done?"  
  
Well, yeah, in the sense that that was what they did most days, but that was before Xander had discovered that he had a point to prove. "I'll see you later tonight," he promised. "This is... guy stuff."  
  
"Oz is a guy," Willow said, but she went on before Xander could point out that while he couldn't argue about that, and he liked Oz, he was pretty sure that after last fall, he and Oz were never going to be best buds. "And since when do you do guy stuff?"   
  
"Huh? Me? I'm all about the guy stuff. Uh, watching sports and crushing cans on my head and... you know. Guy stuff," he concluded lamely, glancing at Larry and silently praying he didn't laugh. He didn't, although his mouth twitched like it was taking definite effort for him not to.   
  
Buffy, on the other hand, gave him a look like he'd just sprouted an extra head. "...Yeah. You have fun with that," she said, closing her locker and starting down the hall to the library.   
  
Willow waited a moment longer, but finally said, "I guess we'll see you later, then?" and took off after Buffy.   
  
Xander turned to Larry, giving him an apologetic smile. "They're kind of weirded out," he said. "You know, Willow's more used to me running away from you, and Buffy--"  
  
"Made it clear already that if I did anything to you, she'd kick my ass," Larry said. He grinned. "You missed that part."   
  
Xander groaned. "Why does she keep doing that to me?"   
  
"Hey, it's cool," Larry said. "You weren't actually serious about the can-crushing, were you? Because I'm pretty sure you turning up with a giant bruise on your head would lead to that ass-kicking I was promised. And for no bigger than she is, Summers is pretty tough."   
  
"Yeah," Xander agreed. "I think she does tae kwon do or something." Okay, the lying thing was starting to get a little easier. Weird how he hadn't had all that much practice with it over the last couple of years--he'd just mostly stopped talking to people who didn't at least know something bizarre was going on in Sunnydale. "But... no. I thought we'd just... I don't know. Go to the mall, hang out, let you see the Xan-man in action."   
  
Larry grinned at him. Xander was going to have to work on getting over that panic reaction around him; eleven years of cowering in fear meant that even a smile from Larry made him jumpy. But he made himself grin back as Larry said, "Sounds good to me."   
  
  


***

  
  
"I feel sorry for you," Xander said, dunking one of his curly fries into the cup of ketchup.   
  
Larry looked at him for a minute, and Xander was pretty sure he could read Larry's mind:  _I'm a football player. You're a dork. What are you talking about?_  What he said, though, was, "Because I've gone through eighteen years without the full Xander Harris experience?" He smiled when he said it, and Xander thought about warning him that it could have been interpreted as flirting.   
  
But just because Alexander Lavelle Harris was a hundred percent absolutely  _not gay_  didn't mean that he was the kind of jerk who automatically assumed every gay guy he met was hitting on him. Why would they? Every  _girl_  he met didn't hit on him. If he was being honest, hardly  _any_  of the girls he met did.   
  
"No," Xander said. "Because you're missing out on the wonder that is  _that_." He gestured--unfortunately, with the curly-fry-holding hand, sending droplets of ketchup splattering over the table--toward the girl in the sorority t-shirt who was sitting at a nearby table, talking on a cell phone. He honestly did feel sorry for Larry; she was way out of Xander's league, even if she hadn't been in college, but she was  _hot_ : blonde hair, lightly tanned skin, long legs.  
  
"I'm not missing anything," Larry said. "She's pretty."  
  
Xander frowned. "Okay, what happened to the gay thing?"  
  
"It's not the same as the  _blind_  thing. I can see that she's pretty; she's just not my type."   
  
"Yeah," Xander said, not sure exactly what he was agreeing to, but wanting to say  _something_. He was kind of curious about what Larry's type actually would be--not curious as in the way Buffy and Willow compared notes about what guys they thought were cute when they were pretty sure he wasn't listening to them, but curious as in,  _Here we are, exploring this strange new territory, and why not ask the natives all about it?_    
  
Because that was a bad way to convince Larry that Xander's type was a hundred percent girl, that was why not. And because it might sound like he was hinting that he wanted to be Larry's type, and that'd just be...stupid. And wrong. And not really fair to Larry, because Larry had been going out of his way to be a decent human being, this past year, and Xander didn't want to give him the idea that Xander wasn't grateful for that.   
  
So he just shrugged, nodded toward the girl, and said, "Still. I totally feel sorry for anyone who can't really  _appreciate_  that."  
  
Larry chuckled and said, "Should I feel sorry for you, then, because you can't appreciate  _that_?" He nodded toward the same table, and Xander looked up to see a guy sitting down next to the girl.   
  
Okay, so  _that_  was Larry's type. Not really surprising; he was a big guy, looked like a jock, or at least somebody who'd been a jock in high school. The frat-boy type. Xander  _hated_  that type. Present company at least mostly excepted.   
  
The guy grinned at the girl, showing off white teeth and dimples, and she said something, giggling. Xander hated that type just a little bit more.   
  
He rolled his eyes. "If I  _was_  gay, which I'm still not, I'd have better taste than that."  
  
"Whatever," Larry said, taking a drink of his soda. "But this isn't the 'Xander Harris experience,' I'm pretty sure."   
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Well, you mostly hang out with girls, which means, unless every day is Opposite Day for you, you're not sitting around talking about which girls are hot."   
  
Okay, Xander thought, he had a point there. He got away with more of that than Larry would probably believe, because Willow had gotten used to it from him and Jesse. Besides, Oz was around sometimes, and even though Oz didn't do a lot of the recreational girl-watching (or at least, comment on it when he did), he was there as silent back-up.   
  
"You might be right," Xander admitted, though he didn't add that he was more likely to be sitting back listening to Buffy and Willow talk about boys. He didn't actually like that any more than  _they_  liked listening to him; it just went with the territory.   
  
"So what  _do_  you do?"  
  
"Um." As an answer, it left something to be desired, but at least it gave his vocal cords something to do while he tried to come up with an answer that didn't involve the words "evil" or "vampire" or "forces of darkness." Or even "library," because he'd been in class with Larry since kindergarten, and it might be easier to convince Larry that he fought evil most days after school than to convince him that he voluntarily hung out in a place where books lived. "I can't tell you," he said, which wasn't any better than "we fight evil!" as an answer. Damn his brain for not being able to think up a good cover story.   
  
"You  _can't tell me_  what you do when you hang out with Buffy and Willow," Larry repeated. Then, brow furrowing, he said, "Fuck. You're not  _actually_  having sex with them, are you? Because even when I was trying to piss you off by  _saying_  you were, I didn't think--"  
  
"No!" Xander said rapidly. "Willow's dating Oz, and--" And maybe that wasn't the best argument considering that somehow, the  _whole school_  knew about why he and Cordelia had broken up, but it was the only one he had. "And Buffy's..."  _in love with a vampire_. "Totally not interested in me," he concluded. "It's nothing like that."   
  
Larry grinned. "I didn't think so," he said. "I mostly see you guys headed for the library, and that's not exactly make-out central."  
  
"No," Xander agreed. "We're mostly doing research." He started to smack himself in the head for that before realizing that research was, in fact, an actual legitimate school-type thing, as long as it didn't involve demonic portents or figuring out what the hell the mayor was up to. "You know, working on term papers. Homework. Stuff like that." He gave Larry what he hoped was a sheepish grin. "They're trying to make sure I graduate."   
  
"I figured it was something like that," Larry said, then, too quickly, added, "Homework. Senior year. There's a lot of it. And Rosenberg's super smart, everybody knows that, and you know... who wouldn't want help if they were friends with a genius?"  
  
It was a nice try at covering the whole "I figured you were dumb enough to need help graduating," thing. A good enough try that Xander made a real effort not to be insulted, even if he  _didn't_  need help graduating. He had a solid C-minus average in everything right now. Okay, his C-minus in math wasn't exactly  _solid_ , but even if it slipped a little more, he had the entire range of Ds available to him before he flunked. "Yeah," Xander said. "Exactly. Willow's a lot of help." And she did help him with his homework sometimes. That was just usually on the phone, because library time was Scooby time.   
  
"I didn't think about you doing homework," Larry said. "I mean, this is the first time since seventh grade that I've had much time after school free--in the fall it's football practice, and in the winter I'm supposed to be doing weight training a few days a week, and in the spring... more football practice. I'm used to doing my homework at ten at night or so, by the time I get done with practice and hang out for a while afterward."  
  
"You don't have practice now?"  
  
Larry shook his head. "No point getting ready for next year when I'm not going to be here to play," he pointed out.   
  
"What about college?" If Larry was in honors physics, he had to be going to college. There was no point in taking honors anything if you were stopping after high school.   
  
"What about it?" Larry shrugged. "I'm going to UCLA. There's no way I'm playing."   
  
"Sorry?" Xander ventured, although he wasn't sure if he was or not.   
  
"No, it's cool. I could have gone to a smaller school if I wanted to play football. I didn't want to."   
  
Xander realized suddenly that he and Larry were having an actual, normal conversation like people who hadn't hated each other for the first eleven years they'd known each other, and then spent the last year with one of them completely deluded about the other one. Weird. "Okay, then," he said, partly to himself.   
  
"Anyway, if you want to go and see if they're still in the library, that's cool," Larry said.   
  
"No," Xander said. "That's okay. I'll, uh, manage on my own for one night."  
  
Larry shrugged. "My books are in the car, if you want to--I could go get them." He nodded toward the bookbag at Xander's feet; Xander had brought it in out of habit. He wasn't used to having a car to leave his stuff in when he went places.   
  
"Study? With you? I mean, um, here?" Xander backpedaled. He hadn't actually meant to sound quite that shocked. Or maybe he did. He'd already forced to confront the idea that Larry was apparently not that dumb; he'd never paid attention to what classes Larry was in before, except for the ones they had together. So it wasn't that. It was Larry volunteering to spend  _more_  time with him that was bizarre.   
  
"Unless you want to head back to the library, or something?"   
  
"No, uh, here's good. I just mean--well,  _why_?"   
  
"I don't know," Larry said. "It took a lot of guts to do what you did for me last year. More than I thought, considering you're still so completely wigged about things. And I'd been a total jackass to you, so you were taking a big chance that you were just going to get the crap beaten out of you again." He smiled. "But you could tell how messed up I was about it, and you helped me anyway, just because it was the right thing to do. So... why wouldn't I want to hang around you sometimes?"  
  
Xander felt about three inches tall. How was he supposed to tell Larry that wasn't it? That he'd only gone to talk to him because he'd thought Larry was killing people, and it hadn't been out of any concern for  _Larry_  at all?   
  
He couldn't. If he did, he'd have to explain that he'd thought Larry was a werewolf, and the whole hyena-possession thing, and there was really no good way to do that.   
  
Besides, the new, improved, not-taking-out-all-his-problems-on-the-world Larry wasn't all that bad, and it had been a long time since Xander had had a guy friend, one he could hang out with even without the girls around. And since the best thing that could happen if he told Larry the truth was that Larry was going to think he was a grade-A nutcase, opening his big mouth was going to wreck  _everything_.   
  
Xander decided that shutting up was the best way to handle this; he just nodded and let Larry go and get his backpack from the car.   
  


***


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, he'd gone from feeling three inches tall to about two inches and shrinking rapidly.   
  
He didn't hang around Larry every day, but he  _saw_  him every day; besides the classes they had together, there was lunch, and passing one another in the hall, and Xander was starting to think he ought to go back to his earlier strategy of running the other way whenever he saw Larry.   
  
Because Larry? Was all right, really, now that he wasn't trying to prove to the entire school that he was the Manliest Man in Man-Ville. Okay, he was still a football player, but Xander had gotten along okay with the swim team during his brief spell on it--at least, when they weren't turning into fish-monsters--and for somebody who had zero in common with Xander once they got beyond their mutual love of oxygen and gravity, he was okay to be around.   
  
Xander had stopped bringing up the thing where he was hanging around Larry to prove how not-gay he was, because... well, there was only so much they could say about it. Larry was gay, and Xander wasn't. That didn't stop them from hanging out after school and watching the cross-country team jog past--the girls' and boys' teams ran together, so it was an eye-candy extravaganza for both of them--or playing pool one rainy afternoon in Larry's parents' basement, or going to the matinee of the explosion-and-car-chase-heavy movie that Xander had dreaded trying to convince Willow and Buffy that they wanted to go see with him.   
  
And Xander  _liked_  that. He didn't like having to lie to Larry about why he'd had to cancel plans at the last minute--Giles had found some hints about what the mayor might be doing, and they'd spent the entire afternoon and most of the night in the library digging through old books, only to wind up with their old friends Diddly and Squat--but he liked hanging out with Larry. And if Larry ever found out that the real reason Xander had confronted him that day in the locker room was that last year, when someone said "savage killer," Larry's name was the first one that came to mind, well, so much for hanging out.   
  
Xander wished he  _had_  done what Larry thought he had. Even if he  _had_  guessed what had been going on with Larry, though, he wouldn’t have done it. He wasn't that guy.   
  
He was just Xander Harris, who screwed up a lot, and who had his friends worried because he was spending so much time with someone who wasn't one of them and also used to be kind of a Neanderthal.  
  
"We're not jealous," Buffy began one afternoon in class, only to be interrupted by Willow.   
  
"We're a little jealous," Willow corrected her, ducking her head and smiling a little.   
  
"Okay," Buffy agreed, "some of us might be a little jealous that you're hanging out in strange new places with strange new people." The teacher glared at her, but looked away again after Buffy looked down, pretending to concentrate on her book for a minute. They were supposed to be working on their lab report, but Willow had done the calculations in a couple of minutes, and so they were just copying their notes on to the report form now. They could get away with some talking.   
  
"Larry's not a strange new person," he argued. "Strange, maybe, but not new. He was in mine and Willow's class in kindergarten."  
  
Willow nodded. "He ate chalk. Most people go for paste, but not Larry."   
  
Xander had totally forgotten that, but now he filed it away for future friendly mockage. And, okay, maybe he could see Buffy's side of things all of a sudden, because since when did he and Larry have a friendly-mocking kind of relationship?   
  
Well, since Wednesday, as far as he could remember, but that wasn't the point. "Look. You guys know Larry's kind of a different person these days. He doesn't even drag his knuckles on the ground when he walks." He lowered his voice. "And you know I'm still totally there to back you up in the world-saving business."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Buffy said, smiling. "But that's where I was going with this. I mean, I know I haven't exactly won any prizes in the secret identity game, but we can't tell  _everybody_  what's going on."   
  
Xander glared at her, whispering, "I haven't told Larry anything. I wasn't  _planning_  to tell Larry anything. Look, I know I'm not always Mr. Reliable, but give me a break here. I'm not suddenly going to put an announcement in the school paper telling everyone you're a vampire slayer!" Even, he thought, smiling to himself, if it was a  _tasteful_  announcement.   
  
And again with seeing Buffy's point about possibly hanging out with Larry way too much these days.   
  
Willow frowned. "We don't think you'd do something like that, Xander. We're just... you have to admit it's kind of weird that you and Larry are suddenly best friends."  
  
"We're not 'best friends,'" Xander said. He reached out, putting one hand on each of their arms. "I've got my lifetime quota of best friends right here, okay? But you guys have each other to do girly stuff with. It's the same thing."  
  
Giggling, Buffy said, "You eat Ben & Jerry's from the carton and talk about guys?"   
  
"Cheeseburgers. And, uh, girls, of course. I talk about girls."  _Larry_  didn't, but he didn't want to get into that. They didn't ever talk about girls  _or_  guys much. Xander had figured the success of his strategy depended on  _not_  sounding like he was massively in the denial Larry kept claiming he was in.   
  
Besides, he didn't want to talk to Larry about girls. Talking about girls led to talking about how he wasn't dating anybody any more, and he really didn't need anybody else telling him he was an idiot. And talking about guys--he didn't want to hear about Larry's love life. Or the blind date his grandma set him up with for this weekend.   
  
But that explanation seemed to settle things with Buffy and Willow. They both shrugged, and that ended the discussion. They went back to their assignment, and Xander went back to wondering what he was going to do about the whole Larry Situation.   
  
It had a capital letter again, but this time it was just because Xander preferred to capitalize things he was screwing up. And if Larry ever found out exactly why Xander had talked to him that day last year, things were going to be screwed up in a way so huge they hadn't found a word for it yet.  
  
  


***

  
  
"Hey, chalk eater," Xander said, grinning as he closed his locker. He'd brought that up yesterday afternoon, and it had definitely been worthwhile. They'd spent the next two hours working through their homework and dragging up every idiotic thing the other one had done in the first couple of years of elementary school. They seemed to have an unspoken agreement that it stopped with about third grade, which was the first time Xander remembered Larry really beating the crap out of him.   
  
And hey, if the entire town could develop selective amnesia about vampires and demons and all the rest of the nastiness that happened on a regular basis, then Xander could forget everything that had happened from third to eleventh grades. He could name at least four teachers who'd swear that he'd done that already, anyway.   
  
Besides, after a week and a half of hanging out with Larry, he was pretty sure Larry really  _had_  changed. Not that he was Mother Teresa or anything, but he wasn't acting like an asshole any more. And Xander would have noticed.   
  
Not that he was paying excessive amounts of attention to Larry, or anything weird like that. He was just a reasonably observant guy, and ten days or so was enough time to notice stuff.   
  
"Xander," Larry said, grinning, "before you go the 'chalk eater' route again, I want to point out that I know where my mom keeps the photo albums. The one with the pictures from my sixth birthday party in it. And in case you forgot, that's the party the whole class went to. The one where Willow put pink plastic barrettes in your hair?"   
  
Xander rolled his eyes. "Do your worst," he said. "You can't scare me."   
  
The grin got bigger. "Oh, I'm pretty sure I can," Larry said. He picked up his backpack, shoving his books and papers into it.   
  
Xander gulped. "Is this going to involve violence?" Maybe Larry hadn't changed as much as Xander'd thought he had.   
  
Smirking, Larry said, "No. It's probably going to involve you screaming that you're very, very straight again, though, because I was going to say that it's been a long time since I've been to the Bronze. You going to be there tonight?"   
  
Okay. In Xander's best estimate, at least three-fourths of the senior class knew Larry was gay. Probably at least half of them were idiots, so that made... two-thirds? God, he hated fractions. Anyway, that made a lot of people who would think, if he showed up at the Bronze with Larry, that it was a date.   
  
On the other hand, it would completely not be a date. And it wasn't like they'd be spending the whole time alone together. He was pretty sure Willow and Buffy and Oz would be there, and... okay, that might be a little bizarre, but at least it wouldn't give people the wrong idea about what he was doing at the Bronze with Larry.   
  
Because it would definitely be the wrong idea. Well, unless they were thinking that friends hang out together at the Bronze all the time, because that was what would be going on there. And maybe if Larry and the rest of his friends could get along, Xander's life would be just a little less awkward.   
  
"Yeah," Xander said. "I'll probably be there. There's not that much else to do in Sunnydale on a Friday night."   
  
"Cool," Larry said. "Need a ride?"   
  
If they didn't just meet up at the Bronze, but actually  _arrived there together_ , it was going to look even more like a date.   
  
Wait.  _Date_. As in, wasn't Larry supposed to be having one of those this weekend? And hadn't he said the other day that it was on  _Friday_? "Didn't you have plans for this weekend?" Xander asked, casually. Casual in only the way that a guy so straight that he could be comfortable with another guy's gayness could be casual.   
  
Larry shook his head, not looking at him. "Fell through. Do you want a ride or not?"   
  
And if Larry didn't want to talk about the plans that had fallen through, then Xander could leave well enough alone. Never mind all the past evidence that "leaving well enough alone" and "Xander Lavelle Harris" had never been introduced. "Yeah, sure, that works," Xander said. Then, remembering that he already had somewhere to be that afternoon, he said, "Actually, let's change that to a 'no.' I'm going to be in the library this afternoon, so I'll just meet you there."  
  
"Yeah, okay. Catch you later, then." Larry walked off, and Xander realized that there were three freshman girls standing in front of the water fountain, looking at him. Larry'd been blocking them from view before.  
  
"Do I have something on my shirt?" Xander asked, brushing at his clothes in a sudden fit of paranoia. The girls just giggled, one of them leaning in to whisper something to the others, which did absolutely  _nothing_  to make him feel any less paranoid.   
  
Then he reminded himself that there was something about ninth grade that seemed to make people massively stupid, and forgot all about it.   
  


***

  
  
"Who knew there could be Friday nights without research?" Buffy said cheerfully as they drew closer to the Bronze.   
  
"Ah, mindless fun, how I've missed you," Xander added. "And I never thought I'd say this,  _ever_ , but thank you, Wesley, for being a jerk."   
  
They almost hadn't gotten out of the library in time to do anything but go home and go to bed, but Wesley had been there, and he and Giles had gotten into an argument about... okay, Xander had to admit he'd tuned the conversation out once half the words weren't in English any more, but it was something to do with a book they were trying to translate part of to see if it would give them any answers about what the Mayor was up to.   
  
After about twenty minutes, Giles had been annoyed enough that he'd sent them all home. He hadn't actually managed to throw Wesley out, but Xander was pretty sure it was only a matter of time. He was kind of sorry they were going to miss that, since he was equally sure that in Wesley's case, "throwing" might not just be an expression.   
  
"What's going on?" Buffy asked as they got closer to the Bronze. There were always a few cars parked along the street, and of course there were more on weekends, but tonight it looked like there weren't any empty parking spaces within a couple of blocks of the club. She turned back, looking over her shoulder at Willow and Oz.   
  
Willow shrugged, but Oz said, "Some band from the university is playing tonight."   
  
That made sense. The only people from the college who usually showed up at the Bronze were the ones who'd grown up in Sunnydale; there were a couple of 18-and-over clubs over by the campus that were more popular with the students from out of town. But if some of their friends were playing, then Xander could see them making the trip across town.   
  
It was looking like Larry was probably going to have a longer walk than Xander had, though, unless he was already at the Bronze.   
  
That'd be a good thing, Xander thought. If Larry was already there, then Xander wouldn't be watching the door for him--because when Xander said he'd meet up with a friend someplace, he did want to actually meet up with that friend and not find out they spent the entire night on opposite sides of the same room--and Willow and Buffy wouldn't go back to wondering about why Xander was spending so much time with someone who wasn't them. It'd just be a coincidence that the two of them were both at the Bronze. It was Sunnydale, after all; where else were they going to go?   
  
Xander was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't realize Buffy had stopped until Willow poked him in the shoulder. "What's up?" He turned around to see Buffy standing there, frowning.   
  
"I heard something," she said.   
  
"I didn't hear anything," Xander said. Then again, he hadn't been paying attention.   
  
"You guys wait here," Buffy said, and then took off toward the alley a few yards ahead of them.   
  
"Did you hear anything?" Xander asked, and Willow shook her head.   
  
"I did," Oz said, "but--" He shrugged, glancing up at the sky, where the moon hung low and about three-quarters full.   
  
Okay, then, Xander didn't feel like a complete doofus. If the only people who'd picked up on whatever was going on were Buffy, who never really went off Slayer-duty, and the werewolf less than a week before the full moon, then he wasn't just being clueless. No more than usual, at least.  
  
He didn't know why Buffy bothered telling them to wait for her, because about thirty seconds later, the three of them were standing at the entrance of the alley. They'd arrived just in time to see a cloud of dust hanging in the air as Buffy pulled her stake back, then whirled around to stake the vampire who'd been about to hit her with a length of board.   
  
"Are you okay?" Buffy asked, and now Xander could see that there was someone on the ground, using the wall to help himself get back to his feet.   
  
"What the hell were those guys?" a familiar voice said. Xander blinked, realizing that the guy who'd nearly been a vampire Happy Meal was Larry.   
  
There was a moment's pause before Buffy said, sounding way too definite, "Muggers. They were muggers."  
  
Willow nodded. "There's, um, a crime wave right now. Lots of muggers, um, mugging people."  
  
Larry shook his head. "There was something wrong with their faces," he argued.   
  
"They were ugly," Buffy agreed. "That's probably why they wear ski masks most of the time. They must have forgotten them tonight."   
  
 _Come on, Larry,_  Xander urged silently.  _Just go ahead with the muggers thing, and then you never have to know this stuff. Trust me, you don't_ want _to know this stuff._    
  
He should have known that wasn't going to happen. Once Larry got it in his head that something was true, nothing was going to change his mind; if anybody knew that, Xander did. "I saw you stab one of them with that," Larry went on doggedly. He nodded toward the stake in Buffy's hand, and then winced, rubbing the back of his neck. "And then he... what happened to him?"  
  
"He ran away," Buffy said, turning back to the rest of them in a plea for backup. "You guys saw him, right? Running away?"  
  
"Like the wind," Oz said.   
  
Then Xander saw Larry pulling his hand away from his neck and studying it, frowning, and he shook his head. "Guy gets bitten, he deserves to know the truth, Buffy," he said. Then he forced a smile. "Besides, you know most people will just turn around and forget all about it by tomorrow."   
  
Another moment's hesitation, and then Buffy nodded. "Yeah, you're right."  
  
Was he? Xander wasn't a hundred percent sure about that. But if he was going to do something stupid, he might as well jump in with both feet. "I'll do it," he said.   
  
"Do what?" Larry said, coming up behind Buffy.   
  
"Make sure you get home okay," Xander said. "And then explain all about how you just got attacked by an honest-to-God vampire."  
  


***


	3. Chapter 3

Half an hour later, he was sitting on the couch in Larry's parents' family room--Larry had explained, looking down at the floor, that his mom didn't let him have guys in his room any more--with a wet washcloth in his hand, dabbing gently at the blood on Larry's neck.   
  
"It's not bad," Xander said. "He barely got you. Wear a band-aid for a couple of days, and you're good. Everyone will think you're trying to cover a hickey."  
  
Larry snorted, then started to laugh, a weird high-pitched laugh that Xander realized after a minute was the sound of somebody totally freaking out.   
  
"Hey," Xander said, and then again more loudly. "Hey. Look at me." When Larry didn't move, Xander stopped what he was doing, his hand still on Larry's neck, his other hand coming up to rest on Larry's shoulder in what Xander hoped was a sufficiently manly gesture of reassurance. His standards were probably a little off from mostly hanging around girls and British guys.   
  
Larry looked up at him, finally, the laughter subsiding into a hiccupping sound, and Xander gave him a slight smile. "Seriously, in a week or two, it's going to stop seeming weird."  
  
" _That was a vampire_ ," Larry said. "An actual fucking  _vampire_  bit my actual fucking  _neck_ , and it's going to stop seeming weird?"  
  
This time, Xander grinned. "Yeah. Vampires, demons, giant bug-women--just another day in Sunnydale."   
  
Larry just blinked. When Xander got tired of waiting for him to say anything, he went on. "Buffy's a vampire slayer," he said. "She's, um, kind of like a superhero. Willow and I, and Oz now, we're kind of her sidekicks. And the first time you call me Jimmy Olson, I'm going to kick you in the shins," he added quickly.  
  
"I was going for Robin," Larry said, "but you'd just bitch about the tights."   
  
Okay, good. Larry was calming down, and Xander could stop feeling like  _he_  was going to lose it. He didn't know what was going on with him. There were vampires, Buffy stopped them. It wasn't exactly a new thing. Except that this time if Buffy had been two minutes later, Larry would have been Purina Vampire Chow, and Xander wasn't sure he was prepared to deal with how much that was freaking him out, beyond the usual freakiness of knowing that vampires were killing people he knew.   
  
Then Larry shook his head. "Okay. Give that all to me again, this time using very small words and no jokes."   
  
Xander did his best, giving Larry the  _Reader's Digest_  condensed version of it all: the Hellmouth, and Slayers, and the assorted types of nastiness that lurked in Sunnydale at night. And he had to admit, Larry actually paid attention--or at least, Xander thought he did. He might have just been so bewildered by the whole thing that he looked like he was listening.  
  
"Vampires are the worst," Xander said finally. "I mean, they don't try to end the world--usually--but there are more of them around, and since they look like humans, it's easy to get fooled." The look Larry gave him at that hinted at the return of the freak-out, so Xander hurried up and got to the rest. "They also can't come in your house unless you invite them, so  _don't_  invite people in after dark."  
  
"Right," Larry said, "because I just always go around asking people to come in my house at midnight."  
  
"No, I'm serious," Xander said. "When we got here, and you opened the door and said, 'Come on in'?  _Don't do that_. Not at night. Just open the door and go in, and let whoever it is follow you. If they're a vampire, they can't come inside." He shrugged. "Besides that, your best bet is to watch a bunch of monster movies. Most of the stuff in there works--holy water, crosses, sunlight, fire, stake to the heart, beheading..." He paused. "I'm not sure about garlic, though. You'd think Giles would have mentioned it if--"  
  
"Wait," Larry said. "You said something about that before, but I thought I'd heard you wrong.  _Mr. Giles_? You mean, our librarian fights vampires in his spare time?"   
  
Xander nodded. "So you can see why it's a good idea to return your books on time. He's armed."   
  
And now, at last, Larry grinned at him. "Anyone ever tell you you're a dumbass, Harris?"  
  
"All the time," Xander agreed. He realized he was still holding the cold, wet washcloth and set it down on a stack of old newspapers on the coffee table. "Well, since you seem to be okay, I guess I should get going." Then, before he forgot again, he added, "And the stuff about Buffy? Don't tell anybody, okay? I mean, it's okay that you know, but it's not the kind of thing we're supposed to talk about."   
  
Larry shook his head. "I don't think that's going to be a problem."   
  
"Yeah, you'd think," Xander said, "but you have no idea how hard it was not telling you what was going on. You're going to want to say something to your friends about it, and--"  
  
Another shake of Larry's head, and this time he turned slightly away from Xander. "You know we don't exactly talk a lot these days."   
  
"Huh?"  
  
A slight shrug. "Yeah. I mean, I wasn't lying to you--everybody was pretty cool. Nobody hassled me about it when I came out. I still got to play football. Nobody even freaked out in the locker room. But we just sort of... don't hang out much." He shrugged again. "It'll be okay. It's not like I was going to see most of them again after graduation."   
  
Which explained one thing Xander hadn't been about to ask: why Larry, of all people, had time to hang out with Xander after school a couple of days a week. Most of his friends were seniors too, after all, so they wouldn't have had spring football practice either. "Okay, good. I mean, not good," he corrected himself. "But good that you're not going to, you know, tell everybody."   
  
"I wouldn't anyway. You think I want people thinking I'm nuts?"   
  
"You're hanging out with me," Xander pointed out. "Signs point to yes."   
  
"They probably just think I'm--" Larry broke off, shaking his head. "Never mind."   
  
Xander just looked at him for a second, trying to figure out what Larry had been about to say. He'd either been about to insult Xander or totally freak him out, and Xander wasn't quite sure which.   
  
He wasn't sure which would be better, either, because he  _had_  been more than usually freaked out when he'd realized who Buffy had just saved from the vampires, and he'd been hanging around with Larry an awful lot lately, and he'd started realizing that it might have been hard not to say anything about Buffy and vampires and slaying, but it had been  _okay_  with him, because it meant that Larry had to stay separate from the rest of his friends. That when he hung out with Larry, it was just him and Larry.   
  
And the part of his brain that liked thinking about things that the rest of him would be happier never knowing had started pointing out that he'd kind of been liking that.   
  
And so he wasn't sure whether he wanted Larry to say that he'd been doing a good deed by hanging out with a loser, or for Larry to say he'd been hanging out with Xander because...   
  
Well. Because he wanted to.   
  
"They probably think you're what?" Xander repeated, and Larry frowned at him.   
  
"I said, never mind," Larry muttered. "It was a stupid joke, and you'll just freak out at me, so let's leave it alone."  
  
Xander shrugged. "I know what they're probably thinking about me."   
  
"Yeah?" he said, although he didn't really sound interested in what Xander had to say.   
  
"They're probably thinking I'm not so much a hundred percent straight," he said, even though he didn't really believe it had occurred to anyone but Larry, ever.   
  
Larry smiled, but he still didn't look happy. "I guess you'll just have to give them the full Xander Harris experience. That'll convince them."  
  
"No, it won't," Xander said. "Because I know what I'm thinking, too." Apart from the thing where he was thinking he couldn't  _breathe_  right now; his throat was too tight. Maybe his body was reflexively trying to stop him from saying anything else.   
  
"Yeah?" Larry said again, and this time his voice sounded tight, too, like maybe this was making him almost as nervous as Xander.   
  
"Yeah," Xander agreed. "And I'm thinking they might be right about that. It might be more like ninety percent."  
  
And then Xander decided--or some word that kind of meant "decided" but didn't imply that there was actual thinking going on behind the decision-making process--that it might be a good idea to slide a little bit closer on the couch, his eyes on the narrow strip of hallway visible from the partly-open door, just to make sure nobody was walking past, and give that other ten percent of himself a test-drive.   
  
Just once around the block, he thought, and when he leaned in to kiss Larry, he found out Larry had just had the same idea.   
  
As first kisses went, Xander thought once they'd pulled away again--and he did not fail to notice that Larry was looking at him like he was expecting Xander to explode, or scream and run away, or something just as dramatic--it hadn't been a bad one. No bumped noses, no sloppiness, no missing Larry's mouth entirely and kissing him on the chin.   
  
Good enough that Xander would definitely be willing to do it again.   
  
"Ninety percent, huh?" Larry echoed, still watching him for signs of wigging out.   
  
"Huh," Xander said. "Maybe more like eighty." Then he grinned. "Bet you could talk me down to fifty percent if you tried."  
  
"At the risk of repeating myself," Larry said, grinning back, "did anyone ever tell you you're a dumbass?"  
  
"Yeah," Xander said. "But I'm getting smarter all the time."  
  
  


***

  
  
Xander sprawled back on his bed, looking over at the phone and trying to work up the nerve to pick it up. He'd convinced himself on his way home last night--after he'd let Larry talk him down to, at most, seventy-five percent straight--that having this conversation over the phone would be easier than doing it face-to-face.  
  
Maybe it would be, but  _easier_  wasn't the same as  _easy_. Putting it off probably wasn't going to make it any easier, though, so Xander finally picked up the phone and dialed.   
  
Larry's mom picked up, and after she put the phone down to go get Larry, Xander had plenty of time to reconsider. He could hang up. He could just avoid Larry for the rest of time. Larry would probably chalk it up to Xander freaking out about the kissing last night, and he'd probably leave it at that. He might even feel  _sorry_  for Xander.   
  
The thing was, Xander didn't want to avoid Larry for the rest of time. He'd figured that out last night, just like he'd figured out that kissing Larry had been... not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at  _all_ , and Xander was somehow not as disturbed by finding out that his hundred percent was more like sixty as he thought he should have been.   
  
And if he was going to be around Larry on a regular basis from now on, he kind of had to say this. And say it now, when he'd been thinking about it, so that he didn't wind up blurting it out and having it sound even  _worse_.   
  
"Hello?" Larry said. It was too late to hang up now.   
  
"Hey, Larry. It's, um. Xander," he said. Forgetting his own name, even temporarily, was not a good sign for this conversation. He closed his eyes, wishing he could turn into someone smarter and cooler than him, just for, like,  _fifteen minutes._    
  
He could almost hear Larry grin. "Hey, Xander. What's--" And then something in Xander's tone must have registered with Larry, because he sighed and said, much less enthusiastically, "What's going on?"   
  
"I kind of need to talk to you."  
  
Another sigh. "I've been expecting that. Honestly, I didn't even think I'd hear from you again. I figured you'd start running the other way and not stop until graduation."   
  
Xander winced. He'd definitely considered that, although not for the reasons Larry was probably thinking. "You mean because of last night."  
  
"No shit, Sherlock," Larry said. "So go ahead. Tell me again how you're totally straight and I'm, I don't know, some evil pervert trying to corrupt you."   
  
" _What?_ " Xander spluttered. "No way. Seriously, not about last night. It's  _because of_  last night, but no. I didn't call to freak out at you." He flopped back against his pillow, closing his eyes again. Why did he have to do this? He liked talking to Larry. Maybe he could just talk about last night, and whether they were going to do it again, and whether that meant they were, like,  _dating_.   
  
And maybe Willow or Buffy would accidentally mention that one time, he thought Larry was a werewolf, and it'd be worse if he didn't explain all that now.   
  
"But we 'kind of need to talk,'" Larry said. Now he sounded confused, and Xander wished he didn't think that "confused" was going to be the emotional high point of this conversation.   
  
"Yeah," Xander said, sighing. "Okay. Remember last year when we had that talk that apparently managed to change both our lives?" Wait. Larry couldn't see the eye-rolling through the phone. He was going to think Xander had gone all Lifetime-movie on him. Crap.   
  
But all Larry said was, "Yeah, I remember."   
  
"And I said I knew what you were going through?"   
  
"This is going to have a point eventually, right?"   
  
Xander gulped. "Yeah. It has a point. I, uh. I really,  _really_  wasn't talking about, uh, this."  
  
"Xander, if you can't even say it--"  
  
"Look, no, I can't. Your parents? Way cooler than mine. My dad would probably kill me in a very literal way. So when they're home? Not saying it. But that's not the point." He took another deep breath; Larry started to say something, but Xander talked right over him, not wanting to stop until Larry had heard him out. "The point is, I honestly wasn't talking about this."   
  
"So what were you talking about?" Larry asked.   
  
"Do you remember Theresa Klusmeyer?" It was a fair question, since the "in memory of" part of their yearbooks was one of the biggest sections.   
  
"Yeah," Larry said. "I feel like crap that I was such a dick to her, and then she--"  
  
"--was killed by a werewolf," Xander finished. "Or at least, we  _thought_  she was killed by a werewolf."   
  
"There are werewolves, too?" Larry said, sounding a little overwhelmed, and Xander realized he'd left that out of the "Sunnydale After Dark" lecture he'd given last night. He hadn't really wanted to get into the Oz thing until he'd had a chance to talk to Oz about it.   
  
"Uh. Yeah. We were trying to find it to stop it from killing people again, and you'd been picking on Theresa, and you had that big dog bite on your arm..." Xander trailed off for a second, and then decided it would be best to just charge right ahead. "And we kind of thought--no.  _I_  kind of thought it might be you."   
  
He wasn't actually prepared for Larry's reaction. "You thought I was a  _werewolf_?" Larry asked, laughing so hard it was difficult for Xander to understand him.   
  
Xander felt the knots in his chest loosen a little. "Yeah," he said. "I thought the dog bite was really a wolf bite, and, um, werewolves don't always know what they're doing when they change, so--"  
  
"You thought I was a werewolf," he repeated, still chuckling. Then he paused. "Wait. You told me you knew what I was going through because you'd been there."  
  
"Yeah, I--" he began, but Larry cut him off.   
  
"You're a fucking  _werewolf_?"  
  
"No!" Xander said. "I just. Okay, you know sophomore year when Principal Flutie kind of, um, got eaten? I was  _not_  around for that," he added quickly, deciding it wasn't important to mention that he was getting hit on the head with a desk. "But the people who were? They were, uh. Possessed," he said hesitantly. "By these African hyena spirit things."  
  
"Flutie was killed by people possessed by hyenas," Larry repeated. "Okay, let's pretend I'm taking this stuff in, because if we wait until it really makes sense to me, we're going to be here for a while."  
  
"Yeah. He was. And so was I--possessed, I mean. By a hyena. I didn't kill people," he repeated. "But, I mean, that's what I meant about knowing what you were going through. I hadn't--I didn't have any idea about you," he said.   
  
There was a long, long silence, and then Larry asked, "If I had been a werewolf, what would you have done? Or, I guess, what would Buffy have done? I mean, I saw her back there last night, with the vampires, and--"  
  
"Werewolves are different," Xander said firmly. "Most of the time they're just normal people. We would have helped you. Kept you from hurting anybody during the full moon, and left you alone the rest of the time. I swear."   
  
After another long pause, Larry said, "Okay."   
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Okay," he said. "You had a pretty good reason you thought it was me, and you wanted to help. Hell, you  _did_  help, just not like you wanted to."   
  
He could leave it there, he thought. He should leave it there. He'd been honest with Larry, and Larry was okay with it. If he just shut up now, everything was going to be just fine.   
  
Somehow, his mouth completely failed to get that memo. "There's another thing," he said.   
  
"You thought I was Frankenstein, too?"  
  
"No," Xander said. "But--when I started talking to you the other day. Asking you if things were okay, if it was hard for you to cope with being gay." He took another deep breath, staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom, and then blurted it all out. "For a while, Buffy could read minds, and she heard someone planning to kill a lot of people, and we didn't know who, and I thought, maybe, if things were really tough on you--"  
  
"You thought I was, what? Going to come to school with an assault rifle and start blowing people away?" Xander didn't answer, couldn't find any way to make "yes" sound like "no," and Larry finally went on. "Fuck you, Harris. Just-- _fuck you_."  
  
"What?" Xander said. "You were totally okay with me accusing you of being a  _werewolf_!" He could see Larry being less than thrilled, okay, yeah, but that pissed off? That wasn't fair at all. Not after he'd been  _fine_  with the werewolf thing.   
  
"That was different," Larry snapped. "You thought something had  _bitten_  me. You were trying to  _help_. This--what, you thought, 'Who's the most likely psycho killer?' and you automatically came up with me?"   
  
Xander wasn't going to say anything at all. He was just going to let Larry yell, and then, when Larry calmed down, he was going to explain--"Yeah, well, maybe it's all the times you slammed my  _head_  in a locker!"  
  
That was not sitting back and letting Larry yell. That was--oh, God, was he actually  _cursed_  to say the worst possible thing in any given situation?   
  
It did get Larry to stop yelling, although Xander wasn't sure the quiet voice he was using now was any better. "Yeah," he said. "And it doesn't matter that I'm different now, or how freaking sorry I am, does it. You're not ever going to forget that. Not really."   
  
"No, Larry, it's not like--" Xander insisted, the words tumbling out rapidly as he tried to get through to Larry before this went so wrong that he'd never be able to make it right.   
  
Before he could even finish the sentence, though, Larry hung up.   
  
  


***

  
  
Xander didn't pay any attention at all to what was going on in English class on Monday. Not that that was really anything new, but today he was hardly even paying attention to the notes Buffy and Willow were passing back and forth across his desk.   
  
Three rows over, two desks ahead of him. That was where Larry was sitting, acting like he was completely unaware of Xander's existence. He hadn't said anything to Xander before class; he hadn't even made eye contact.   
  
A year and a half ago, Xander would have been thrilled to have Larry ignoring him that thoroughly. A month ago, he wouldn't have cared one way or the other.   
  
Today, it kind of made him feel like he was going to throw up.   
  
When the bell finally rang, Xander jumped to his feet, grabbing his books without even bothering to stuff them back into his bag, and started toward Larry, who was standing next to his desk talking to Percy about something.   
  
He was pretty sure Larry saw him; his jaw tightened, and he turned so that his back was to Xander.   
  
"Larry," Xander began as he got closer, squeezing between the rows of desks so that he was in front of Larry again. Larry had to know he was there. He was looking right at him.   
  
But from all the reaction Xander got, Larry might as well have been looking right  _through_  him.   
  
Xander turned around and trudged out into the hall without another word. If that was what Larry wanted to do, then fine. Xander could pretend Larry didn't exist, too.   
  
"What was that about?" Buffy said as Xander came out into the hall.   
  
"Nothing," Xander snapped; when Buffy frowned, he lowered his voice a little. "That was about a big load of nothing."   
  
"You left your lit book," Willow said, holding it out to him. Xander looked at it thoughtfully.  _Adventures in English Literature_  was a pretty big book, now that he looked at it. Maybe a thousand pages. He could probably knock himself out with it, if he hit himself hard enough.   
  
But he'd just come to eventually, and then Buffy and Willow would  _know_  something was wrong, so he just mumbled, "Thanks," and headed off in the opposite direction to the one he knew Larry would be taking.   
  
Okay, if he was going to completely avoid anywhere Larry might be, it meant he'd have to skip math, since Larry had class right across the hall.   
  
What the hell. It wasn't like he was ever going to be good at math anyway.   
  


***


	4. Chapter 4

Something was definitely wrong.   
  
Number one, neither Buffy nor Willow had  _asked_  him what was wrong since Monday after English class, and it was Wednesday night. Oz hadn't asked him either, but he hadn't actually  _expected_  it from Oz. The girls, though, were given to full-scale interrogations. Except, apparently, this week.  
  
Number two, Willow had helped him with his math homework--which was not so rare by itself, but she didn't insist that he figure out the problems himself; she actually gave in and worked them, or mostly worked them, for him with a minimal amount of whining required from him. Which was nice, he supposed, but it was definitely weird.   
  
Number three, Willow had brought doughnuts to their fun night of researching their impending doom, and instead of the usual squabble over who got the last two--since even Xander could figure out that five people and twelve doughnuts didn't divide evenly--Buffy had handed them both to him and given Giles a death glare when he'd reached for one.   
  
Too bad that he didn't really want a doughnut; he hadn't even eaten the first one he'd taken. He had, at least, been doing research; it turned out that the prospect of the world ending, or whatever the Mayor was doing at this ascension thing, was powerful enough motivation to overcome even the worst case of not-giving-a-crap that he'd had in a while.   
  
He was just going to sit here and tough this out until things got back to normal, and he stopped caring that Larry hated him.   
  
"Say something," Buffy hissed, and Xander looked up, wondering what he'd missed. Had she been talking to him?  
  
Nope; it was Giles, who looked like he wanted to flee the room; he'd taken off his glasses and was polishing them without looking at any of the rest of them. "I don't think this is any of my--" he began.   
  
"You're a guy. Plus? Our token grown-up," Buffy said firmly. "This is your job."  
  
Giles sighed wearily, but gave in. Probably a smart move on his part, Xander thought. "Xander, I believe what Buffy would like me to tell you is that, er, it isn't precisely unheard-of for someone to, to have difficulty accepting the reality of, well, all of this." He gestured at the pile of moldy old books on the table. "But given a little time, I'm sure that your, er, your friend will come around, and--"  
  
"Whoa," Xander said suddenly, holding his hand up. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"I think it's Watcher-speak for 'Don't worry; Larry's just wigged about the vampires,'" Buffy translated helpfully.   
  
Xander blinked at her. "No, I got what he was saying, I just...  _what are you talking about_?"  
  
"It's sort of obvious," Willow said. "I mean, you were spending all that time with Larry, and then after this weekend, you've been kind of miserable."  
  
"And Larry's totally been treating you like you suddenly became Invisi-Xander," Buffy added. "But like Giles said, once he calms down, everything's going to be okay." She paused. "And then we're going to sit down for a talk about things you haven't been telling us."  
  
"I can't believe you thought you couldn't tell  _us_ ," Willow said, pushing her book aside for the moment. "We're your best friends. Did you really think we were going to care if you were, you know, sort of gay?" She sounded hurt, and Xander winced. He'd been going to tell her just as soon as he'd gotten things squared away with Larry. But then Larry had hung up on him, and there hadn't seemed to be a point to telling anybody anything.   
  
"Even if your taste in guys leaves a little to be desired," Buffy said. "Then again, your taste in girls hasn't always been the best, so that's not really front-page news."   
  
"I mean, it's not like you don't know  _our_  secrets," Willow went on. Oh, God. He so could not look at Willow's sad-face without feeling guiltier than he already did.   
  
"Yeah," Oz said, finally joining the discussion. "I hear Willow's dating a werewolf or something."   
  
"Just... stop, okay?" Xander said. "I don't want to talk about Larry, he's not that wigged about vampires, and  _where_  did everyone get the idea that we were dating, anyway?" He shoved his chair back from the table, getting up and heading for the door. "I need air."   
  
He didn't go very far, stopping just a few yards down the hall and leaning against the wall, resting his forehead against the cool cinderblock. He could hear the library doors opening again, quiet footsteps coming toward him. Sneakers; that meant either Oz or Willow, and he was pretty sure he could guess which.  
  
"Hey," Willow said, putting her hand on his back. "We didn't mean to go all third-degree on you back there."  
  
"Well, you did," Xander muttered.   
  
"And the thing about you dating Larry--most of the senior class is talking about it," Willow said. "'Cause a lot of people know Larry's gay-- _I_  didn't until Oz told me, but nobody ever tells me stuff like that--and you guys suddenly started hanging out, and you...." She sighed. "I can tell when you like somebody, Xander. I've known you since kindergarten."   
  
"How come nobody ever tells me this stuff?" he said, finally looking up at her.   
  
"Well, we kind of figured you knew who you were dating," she said. "And we were going to say something to you, but then Larry started acting all weird again, and we figured he'd freaked out about what happened Friday night."  
  
"He did, a little," Xander admitted, "but he was okay with it. It's not... it's just..." He shrugged. "He's pissed at me, that's all." Then he took a deep breath. "And the dating thing--we aren't. I mean, we weren't. We might have been, for like eighteen hours this weekend, but that's all."   
  
Xander bit his lip; Willow had seen him at his least cool, true, but he really didn't want to lose it in front of her. "And then I did something  _stupid_ , and that's it," he finished, kicking at the wall. Cement blocks and sneakers weren't a winning combination, he discovered, wincing.   
  
"How stupid?" Willow asked, and Xander sighed.   
  
"I've been dumber," he admitted, smiling slightly. "I told him about thinking he was the werewolf last year--"  
  
"You didn't tell him about Oz, did you?" Willow said.   
  
"Not yet. Telling him about Buffy was one thing; he saw her in full-on Slayer mode anyway. But I wanted to make sure it was okay with Oz before I said anything." And he wasn't annoyed at all that Willow was more worried about Oz's secret than about his  _life_. Really. He wasn't that self-centered.   
  
Okay, maybe he was. He might have dated Cordelia too long; some of it had worn off on him. But at least he could ignore it and get back to the point. "Anyway. I told him that, and then I told him about when Buffy could read minds, and I kind of told him that I thought he might have been about to go postal in the cafeteria." He sighed. "And you don't have to tell me that was stupid. I already know."   
  
Willow didn't. She just hugged him, and Xander wished he'd told her days ago. At least he knew he could always count on Willow to be sympathetic, even while she told him he was being stupid. "So what are you going to do now?"  
  
"Go back in the library and make with the thrilling research," he said. "And tell Giles I won't let Buffy cut his hand off if he takes the last doughnut; I’m not hungry."   
  
"I meant about Larry."   
  
"Thank you for screwing up my attempt to totally change the subject," Xander said, but he smiled at her. "And I'm not doing anything about Larry. I don't think there's anything I can do."  
  
"There's this thing called an apology," she said. "I hear they're in with the cool kids this year."   
  
"I tried to apologize on Saturday," he argued. "He hung up on me. And I tried calling him Monday night, and he hung up as soon as he knew it was me. "  
  
"And you can only try something once? If he won't talk to you, put a note in his locker or something. He might read it."  
  
He sighed again. "You know, you're not very supportive of my quitter-ness. Quitterosity? Anyway, whatever it is, you're not very supportive of it."  
  
"Only 'cause I love you," she said. "Now, are you going to try leaving a note for him, or what?"   
  
"I'll think about it," he said. "If I do, does that get me out of the thing where you and Buffy sit me down and tell me I have failed in my duty to keep you two informed of everything?"  
  
"I’m guessing 'not on your life,'" she said.   
  
"I'll think about it anyway."  
  
  


***

  
  
Xander wrote the note in homeroom the next morning, the only time he had without the chance that well-meaning but interfering friends would be reading over his shoulder. He'd meant to write it at home last night, but had run into trouble when he discovered there were six pens at the bottom of his bookbag, but none of them actually had any ink. So he scribbled it in between attendance and the morning announcements, hoping he managed to make enough sense even without the chance to read it over.   
  
He'd meant to put the note in Larry's locker on the way to first period, but there were a bunch of girls standing in front of it waiting for Nancy to finish getting her books from the one next to it, so he shoved the folded-up paper in his pocket, instead.   
  
It stayed there through the first three periods; every now and then, Xander would reach into his pocket, wondering if he should just throw it in the trash.   
  
But he'd gone to all the trouble of writing the stupid thing, and it wasn't like he could actually  _lower_  Larry's opinion of him at this point, so at lunch, he waited until he saw Larry standing in the cafeteria line, and then got up from the table. "Save my seat."   
  
"Are you gonna give the you-know-what to you-know-who?" Willow said, giving him an exaggerated wink.   
  
"Huh?" Xander asked, only half listening.   
  
"The you-know-what," she repeated. "To you-know-who." This time, she nodded toward Larry.   
  
"Am I supposed to be pretending I don't know about this," Buffy asked, looking up from her chicken sandwich, "or is there a tragic noun shortage?"   
  
"Pretending you don't know," Willow and Xander said simultaneously.   
  
"Right," she said. "Color me out of the loop, then, and pretend I didn't just tell you that someone who will remain nameless has his back turned to you, so he'll never realize you left the cafeteria."   
  
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Xander said, but he gave her a grateful grin as he grabbed his bag from the floor and slung it over his shoulder.   
  
The halls weren't completely deserted, of course, but the teachers on lunch duty were supposed to round people up and herd them toward the lunchroom or outside. One of them stopped him; Xander couldn't remember her name, but he knew she stood around talking to his English teacher a lot.   
  
"I don't have a pass," he said, not having to work too hard to look nervous. He just wasn't nervous about being stopped by a teacher. "But I have a quiz next period that I didn't even  _know_  about, and I just need to grab my notebook."   
  
She sighed, pushing her hair back from her forehead, and obviously decided that it wasn't worth hassling him over. "I didn't see you," she said. "And when I get back around here in a few minutes, I'd better not see you for real, this time."  
  
"You won't, I promise," he said. "Thanks." He sprinted off down the corridor, but stopped when the teacher called out a warning about running in the halls. He walked very quickly until he turned the corner, then started running again. The last thing he wanted was for Larry to  _really_  have forgotten a book and go to his locker when Xander was still there.   
  
Xander stopped in front of Larry's locker, suddenly not quite as sure that it  _was_  Larry's. Maybe having Larry catch him shoving the note into his locker wasn't the last thing he wanted. Putting the note in somebody else's locker, that might be worse.   
  
Yeah, he finally decided, this was the right one. Xander pulled the note out of his pocket, carefully sliding it into the vents in the locker door. It didn't quite want to go; he flattened it out a little and tried again, and this time, it disappeared into the locker.   
  
Xander slumped back against the lockers, taking a deep breath. There. He'd done it. One way or another, this was completely over; either Larry would be willing to talk to him about it, or he wouldn't and there was nothing more Xander could do.   
  
Except, of course, have that conversation with Buffy and Willow about why they were the last to know about his apparent non-straightness.   
  
Maybe they'd take pity on him if Larry didn't forgive him, and let him off easy.   
  
And maybe, he thought, as he went back toward the cafeteria, pigs would fly.   
  
  


***

  
  
It was completely possible that Larry hadn't gone to his locker on Thursday afternoon. Not  _likely_ , but possible. If he'd carried all his books for his afternoon classes when he'd gone to lunch, and if those had been the only classes he'd had homework in, he  _might_  not have gone to his locker then.   
  
And if he'd carried  _all_  his books--okay, his backpack probably would have exploded, because their English book was huge, but if he had, then maybe he wouldn't have gone to his locker on Friday morning, either. Maybe.   
  
But Friday afternoon had come and gone--and Xander had hung out near his own locker, hopefully, until three forty-five--and he hadn't seen Larry. Xander was forced to admit that it was looking like Larry had either found the note and thrown it away without reading it, or he'd read it and  _then_  thrown it away.   
  
Okay, fine. A couple of weeks ago, Xander hadn't really given a crap about Larry one way or the other, and he could go right back to that. Not really a problem. He was good at letting things get back to normal. Look at the way he and Cordelia had gone  _right_  back to hating one another, just like they had since kindergarten.   
  
And it wasn't like he'd had time to deal with this anyway. He had to graduate, which was a strong possibility but by no means definite, and there was this whole ascension thing to deal with, and that was even without taking into account the sucking pit of social rejection that was the prom, looming over his head like Snoopy doing his vulture impersonation.   
  
So really, it was good. And he was lying on his bed on a Friday evening, eating Cheetos and listening to Hank Williams (he'd gotten completely sick of Patsy Cline yesterday) because he didn't want to do his homework. And Hank Williams was an important influence on American music. Even  _Oz_  approved of Hank.   
  
It had nothing at all to do with being miserable, because he wasn't. He was just taking a day off from his life. He could do that sometimes.   
  
At least his parents weren't home, he thought. Not that they would have come upstairs to see what was going on with him, but it meant the house was quiet. It'd probably be after midnight when they got home, so he had at least five more hours to avoid his homework in peace.   
  
He'd just reached over to push the "next track" button on the CD player so he could skip over "Kaw-Liga" when he realized that he'd been hearing the doorbell ringing for the past couple of minutes and hadn't really noticed it with the music playing.   
  
His window was at the back of the house, so he couldn't look out to see who it was. It was probably Willow, though, since he hadn't been answering the phone since he got home. Normally, he appreciated Willow's best-friend-ly concern about him, but tonight, he just wanted to be left alone.  
  
Sighing, Xander got up, wiping orange Cheeto dust on the leg of his sweatpants, and went downstairs to open the door.   
  
It wasn't Willow.   
  
"Hey," Larry said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.   
  
Xander was  _not_  girly enough to care that his hair was sticking up and he had a bright orange streak of powdered cheese on his right thigh. Nope. Not him. "Hey." There, that was okay. Not particularly hopeful, nothing that could be used against him, nothing that would make him look like a bigger loser than he already did. It was just a thing you said when someone showed up on your doorstep.   
  
"I, uh, got your note."   
  
"I figured," Xander said. It was still light enough outside that he could probably be sure Larry wasn't a vampire, but he still didn't really  _want_  to invite Larry in. He didn't want to stand in the doorway like a moron, either, though, so he just stepped back from the door. If Larry wanted to come in without being invited, he could. If he wanted to wait for an invitation, well, tough.   
  
Larry didn't want to wait for an invitation, apparently; he came in, looking around while Xander closed the door. "Can we--I was thinking we might want to go someplace else. You know, so we could talk?"   
  
Oh, yeah. He had mentioned the possibility of his dad killing him, hadn't he? Xander shook his head. "No big deal. My parents aren't home."   
  
"Okay," Larry said. He didn't say anything about the state of the living room, although he'd have to be blind not to notice. Not that it was  _gross_ , or anything, just... his mom wasn't much for dusting. And his dad had left a mostly-empty bottle of Wild Turkey and a glass on the table next to his chair. And somebody should probably empty the ashtrays one of these days. But Xander had seen worse, and he didn't mean vampire lairs, either.   
  
But Larry didn't say anything, and he didn't give Xander one of those "Oh, God, I'm sorry," looks, either. He just kept looking down at the floor until finally Xander waved his hand toward the couch.   
  
"You know, I'm pretty sure you know how to sit," he said. "What, are you waiting for me to hold up a milk-bone?"   
  
Now Larry did give him a look, rolling his eyes before going over to the couch. Xander hesitated for a moment, then decided the couch was big enough for both of them. Besides, if he sat in the chair, with Larry on that end of the couch, the lampshade blocked his view. That might be a good thing, depending on what Larry was about to say, but Xander was going to take his chances.   
  
Once Xander was settled on the other side of the couch, Larry cleared his throat. "So," he said, "I got your note."  
  
"You said that already," Xander said. He wasn't going to help Larry out in this conversation, not until he figured out what direction it was heading in. "And since I put it in your locker, I figured you would."   
  
"Yeah," Larry said. Xander waited; he didn't say anything else.   
  
"So, if that was all you had to say, I guess I'll see you around," Xander said.   
  
"No." Larry sighed. "Look, what you did, or, you know, what you assumed about me? Still sucks. A lot."   
  
"Not denying that," Xander said. He'd said as much in the note.   
  
"But then, you know, the rest of what you said? About how you'd been giving  _me_  a second chance to prove I wasn't going to punch you or call you a geek?" Xander nodded. "I guess you have a point. Well, you  _do_  have a point; I don't have to guess."  
  
"Yeah?" Xander said, feeling a little hopeful for the first time in this conversation.   
  
"Yeah," Larry agreed. "You also had a point about how if I wanted to hang around you, I was going to have to get used to you being a dumbass." He grinned, although it looked a little fake; Xander managed a slight smile in return.   
  
"All part of the full Xander Harris experience," he said.   
  
"Yeah, well, maybe you're not the only one of us who can be a dumbass," Larry conceded. "And I'm going to have to get used to it, because I do. Want to hang around you, I mean."   
  
Xander shrugged. It was kind of comforting to realize that Larry might have been one of the cool guys, and a jock, but he still failed just as badly as Xander at being smooth or suave or... coherent, really. "That wouldn't suck," he finally said.   
  
"But, um. The stuff that happened last Friday?"   
  
Xander held his breath again. "You mean the vampire nearly killing you stuff, the Buffy's-a-superhero stuff, or the thing where I kissed you?"  
  
"All of it, really," Larry said, "but let's go with last things first."   
  
Xander sighed. Great. Larry might have forgiven him, but there was still a pretty good chance that Larry had decided that his tongue and Xander's mouth weren't going to be allowed to play together any more. Which was okay. Better than Larry hating him, anyway. But still, not the greatest possible outcome. "Fine. I get it. I suck, and I should make sure it doesn't happen again."   
  
"What?" He looked up at Xander now, smiling a little. "You do know I bailed on that date I was supposed to go out on last Friday, right?"  
  
"Huh? No." Xander blinked. "From the way you didn’t want to talk about it, I figured  _he_  bailed."  
  
Now Larry's grin was real. "You really are mentally deficient sometimes, aren't you?"  
  
"Once in a while," Xander admitted. "So spell it out for me."  
  
"I bailed on going out with this guy--okay, my grandma knows his, so I didn't have much hope for it anyway, but dude, I bailed on him to  _go hang out with you._ "  
  
"Oh," Xander said. "Really?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"So that whole 'it won't happen again' thing?"  
  
Larry rolled his eyes. "Should be shut up about now." Then he paused. "I mean, if you want."  
  
"Oh, I want," Xander said, grinning. "Definitely. I mean, I'm still at least seventy percent straight. You should get to work on that."   
  
Larry slid closer to him on the couch, his arms going around Xander. That was weird, because Xander was used to being the one doing that, but it wasn't weird in a bad way. And it meant that, when Larry kissed him--open-mouthed and slow and really, seriously good--Xander's hands were free to clutch at Larry's jacket, hauling him closer so that Xander could kiss him more.   
  
They broke apart finally, both of them breathing heavily, Xander unable to look away from Larry's mouth, which was red and wet, looking just like... well, just like he'd just spent the past several minutes kissing Xander. Which, since he had, was a damned good way for him to look.   
  
The silence went on a little long, until Xander stopped caring that he had no idea what to say, just needing to say  _something_. "So," he said, "does this mean we're going out or something?"   
  
Larry laughed, looking at Xander again. "Well, we're not actually going  _out_  unless you put on a shirt that  _doesn’t_  advertise Girl Scout cookies--" Xander looked down to realize that yeah, he  _was_  wearing the shirt Willow had given him in sixth grade when her troop leader had gotten "small" confused with "extra-extra-large" on the t-shirt order--"but yeah. If you want to."  
  
"We could hang out here tonight," Xander said, trying to sound casual. "My parents went out. They won't be back until late. We could, um, watch movies or something."   
  
"Yeah," Larry said, grinning at him. "That'd be good."  
  
Xander couldn't agree with him more.   
  
  


***

  
  
"It's going to be okay," Xander said, and Larry gave him a dirty look. "I know," he went on. "You're not worried at all that they're going to hate you, and it doesn't matter if my friends like you, and you're a big tough guy who isn't even slightly scared of little tiny Buffy Summers." He grinned. "Face it, Lar, I have mocking rights now."   
  
"Yeah," Larry said, "I guess you do." He took a deep breath as Xander pushed open the doors of the library.   
  
Xander could tell the exact second when they saw who was behind him: Willow gave him a not-very-covert thumbs-up gesture, Buffy looked a little wary, but curious; Oz raised an eyebrow. Giles stacked up some books quickly; Xander assumed that was to hide the stuff that wasn't technically listed in the school card catalogue.   
  
"You guys know Larry, right?" Xander said. "He, um. He wants to help."   
  
Larry nodded. "I don't know how much use I'll be, but after you saved me the other day--" he nodded at Buffy-- "and Xander explained what you guys are doing? I can help. I mean, I'm not a superhero, but I'm pretty strong, and pretty fast, and I--"  
  
"--want to be able to hang out with Xander more," Buffy finished for him.   
  
"That's only part of it," Larry said. "I really do want to help. I had no idea this sh--uh, stuff," he corrected himself, obviously just then realizing that there was an adult in the room, "was going on in Sunnydale. But now that I do, I want to help you stop it."  
  
Nobody said anything for a minute, and Xander started to worry that they hated the idea. Not that it meant Larry would hate  _him_ , or anything, but he liked the idea of having Larry around more, and he really liked the idea that his friends would actually get to know the same Larry he did.   
  
Plus, he liked that his--yeah, he guessed he could say the word "boyfriend" without freaking out--was the kind of guy who'd step up and volunteer to help out like that.   
  
"Can you read?" Giles said, finally.   
  
"Huh?" Larry said. "I mean, yeah, I can read. Since first grade or so."   
  
Giles pointed toward the pile of books. "Xander will tell you what sort of thing we're looking for."   
  
Xander looked from Willow to Buffy to Oz, and back to Willow. She nodded, Buffy grinned, and Oz raised an eyebrow, which worked for Xander as a sign of approval.   
  
"Yeah," he said, as Buffy slid down one chair so that he and Larry could sit next to one another. "I've got it covered."   
  
He was pretty sure spending a Saturday night hanging out in the school library reading books about demon manifestations counted as the most boring date ever.   
  
On the other hand, Larry didn't seem to mind. And besides, vampires and demons and things that drooled slime on your sleeve?  
  
All part of the full Xander Harris experience. 

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


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